Iain Mac

Got this in an email this morning. Personally, I think that remote control of my car is a terrible idea, but great for some others!!!!

Discuss...


Potentially large reductions in road deaths and injuries - thought to be as dramatic as 29 per cent - could result from a widespread adoption of the new 'Intelligent Speed Adaption' (ISA) proposals put forward today, said the IAM, the UK's largest independent road safety charity.

The IAM, contributors to the government's Motorists' Forum, has backed the scheme but would like to see new digital speed maps at the heart of the ISA system prioritise potentially lethal rural roads.

IAM Director of Research and Policy Neil Greig cautioned that motorists may well resist initially a system that dictates how fast they can drive.

"ISA may be able to ensure that all cars observe speed limits, provided that critical safety conditions are met and tested. However, even with these assurances, an understandable deep-rooted concern about 'Big Brother' will have to be overcome."

Mr Greig said that the report today showed that fleet managers showed a general lack of support, as they did not believe that exceeding speed limits necessarily reduced a driver's safety.

Like an in-car navigation system, ISA uses global satellite positioning (GPS) and a digital map to establish a car's location and what the speed limit is at that point on the road. This information can be used to:

* tell the driver the speed limit through a display on the instrument panel (Advisory ISA)

* control the speed of the vehicle, if the driver so wishes (Discretionary ISA) or

* automatically control the speed of the vehicle (Controlling ISA).

Once ISA is set to keep the car to the speed limit, it does not allow the driver to accelerate beyond it. The system may apply the brakes lightly if the limit is exceeded by a certain amount (for example, while going downhill).

The IAM believes that certain safeguards need to be built in before extensive ISA trialing, including a very high standard of reliability of equipment and speed limit data.

"Drivers could keep their foot firmly on the accelerator, secure in the knowledge that they cannot exceed the maximum permitted speed - so they could fail to drop their speed to below the limit when conditions require it," said Mr Greig. "That abdication of driver responsibility would not be helpful to road safety in the long run."

Mr Greig said that drivers may adopt ISA devices if they promised that speeding fines, penalty points and loss of licence became things of the past.

ENDS



Further details from the IAM website -

iam.org.uk - Controlling how fast you can drive <http://www.iam.org.uk/Resources/Inst...%20Motorists/D
ocuments/IAM%20MT/Controlling%20how%20fast%20you%20drive.pdf>

Oranoco

BIG Brother strikes again, They can fit that to my cars as soon as they prise the keys from my cold dead hands

RS Juto

Same here

dojj

iTrader: (3)

so it will tell you that it's safe to do 30 mph down a 30 mph road, even on a morning like this when there was a sheet of ice in the car park?

it's just some more bollocks so that someone can claim millions of £ for "research" into bollcoks that will never be implimented

RS Juto

You may be on to something there dojj....... say you did have a accident do you think the insurance would accept the car new better than the driver, i dont think so

Yep your right another money making racket

burnzy

+ANOTHER 1

do admit i'v heard this for ages but for starter's they couldn't afford to do it to all the car's in the country n we'd just find a way of removing it they could start doin it to new car's but doubt it cos it'd ruin new car sales n the manufactures would have an uproar, so i think we should be safe, they'll just keep making gettin your license harder witch is good for us cos it stop's the young boy racers from smashin into us for stupid reasons, theres nothink we can do about the old ppl though n usually there eye site lol

dojj

iTrader: (3)

the other thing is that you now have already in place a fleet limiter from the factory so you can preset the cars electronics to just stop you going any faster, like on the motorways, as seen in lots of vans with stickers on teh back saying "70"

this is fine for the penny pinchers who want you to save more fuel, but when things need to get there in a hurry then they complain it takes too long

the transit i drive has an intermitant stop at 85 mph and then sometiems it just won't go any faster, but then sometimes it will, and the only reason you need to go fast is to go faster, otherwise i trundle everywhere at around the 65-75 mph mark on the motorway network

now imagine if you se an overtaking opportunity to get past a tractor and go for it and then, just as you get into no mans land, a big truck is coming the other way and your limiter decides that "oh no you don't sonny, you must drive at 30 mph" then you are fucked, in more ways than one

unless of course you impliment a system like theyshowed on the simpsons when homer decides to finish some truckers route for him after killing him in an eating compitition